The Lilt of Irish Laughter--March 7: Slice of Life Challenge

Yesterday turned out to be a busy day! Set to dash off to NYC for one friend, my plans were thwarted by weather. I'd taken a personal day, though, and I had no plans of letting it go to waste.

I did all the teacher-like things we all normally do, trudging in early to set my desk up for the sub, re-arranging the previous day's schedule on the board for the kids, checking in on emails before I snuck out. And then, the door opened, and my custodian friend, Rich, rolled a cart filled with empty copier boxes in. I was super grateful, because with Grandma's house to empty out, those boxes have been a Godsend.

When I got home, my friend Jerry's ladder was up against my roof. Hallelujah! Let the chipping and cracking and dripping begin! The walls inside my house have been bubbling up and the buckets too, have been filling up too. But help is always on the horizon, and I always have to remember to just ask. Asking is an act of humility, one I'm learning to use now at this point in my life.

A half hour after I got home, another guy named Jeff appeared with a snow shovel, and he began to clear the four feet of snow on either side of the walkway out. I could breathe a little easier, knowing next week's melt-off wouldn't paralyze my husband, holding him hostage for another week inside. This business of asking really is a good thing.

Later on I took my boxes and drove to Grandma's house and worked alongside my sister-in-law, who now, after all these years, is really a sister to me. We sorted and lifted and straightened, and we cleared out a small portion of the stuff that Grandma couldn't part with while she was alive. Emptying is such an emotional thing!

So, last night, after a day filled with mini-emotional rides, I called a couple of friends, and asked them to grab a pizza at a local restaurant in the center of Sandy Hook. Many new restaurants have sprung up, and we've noticed Vito's place, the Villa, could use a little boost. And even though, nothing remarkable happened, and it was just another part of our come-as-you-are Friday thing...we sat in that restaurant until ten...we laughed, and poked fun, and talked about the Yankees and Mets and about the Jets big trade.

And all that laughter led me to think again about Grandma again, her wide, sweeping front porch and how many times that place was filled with all that sweet, Irish sound of laughter too. Laughter is healing. And for it sure is in that lilt...as the song goes, that you can hear the angels, like Grandma, sing!

Craving the Green! March 6: Slice of Life Challenge

   

Craving the Green!

Well, I may be participating in the Slice of Life Challenge for thirty-one days this month, but you can best believe I'll also be participating in my own Irish challenge as well.

For many years, I've started off the month, tipping my hat to my dad, the King of Green. Yes, Kerm, move on over,  John Patrick Murphy, Sr. was the absolute king of it all. Not easy being green? Well, Dad would have none of that.

If you grew up in the small suburban town where I lived, there was a confluence of all different European cultures. On our street alone, there were Italians (my dad would pronounce that--EYE-talians!), Scots, Poles, French and even Swedes and Germans too. There was a wide array of cooking smells, and a wide array of great places to hang around...and get invited in to eat (I had a great set of puppy-dog eyes!). But in our house? We secretly knew...because it was crammed down our throat, that the Irish ruled it all.

My dad had a nose for things, though. And if he smelled even a whiff of garlic on me, I was dead meat for sure. There would be no red sauce, no spaghetti...and definitely no pizza in our house at all.
My classroom kids can hardly believe this...that I grew up without their two favorite dietary delights-pizza and worse, chicken nuggets, sounds like a tall tale to them.

(It wasn't until my dad passed away that we began to fill the pot with our version of Grandma Cucurello's gravy--which we called sauce. And of course, despite my sister, Dub's greatest efforts one did not equal the other at all.)

But...more important than anything else, was my father's commitment to the color green. The outside of our house was a light green, the hallway inside, a darker shade of green, the carpets--green, green coat, green car, and the few clothing articles such as dresses or slacks (as we called them--men wore pants, lol!) were all forest or mint or lime or  moss, and best of all, shamrock green!

It wasn't until I was an adult that I understood my dad's obsession.

I took a trip to County Mayo, to my mom and dad's homeland, a return to my own Irish roots. They say there are more shades of green in Ireland than anywhere else on earth. And it was then, in my time there, visiting mostly my mom's family, that I came to know and understand the depth of my dad's longing for green, and no doubt his long for his homeland too.

     

Some Marches in the past, I've worn at least one green article of clothing each and every day. Socks, a necklace, a sweater...I've got it all. My fave, of course, is a pair of lime green cowboy boots. This year I'm taking the green challenge, intensifying my green and starting about ten days before the big day. So tomorrow, I start my commitment to my dad. He never did see that homeland again, after all.

Everybody's Irish on St. Paddy's Day...c'mon, be Irish with me for the next ten days!

(My father's rolling in his grave knowing there's an orange slice of life logo plastered on my blog. Orange, in the month of March, is just not done at all!)

Kathleen's Irish Soda Bread Recipe

The story goes that good Irish cooks never measure, so when I took down this recipe at Kathleen's table some twenty-five years ago (on the back of an envelope), I was given that disclaimer. It took me many a try to get it all straight. 

Irish Soda Bread: Preheat the oven to 375*

Sift together: 

2 1/2 C flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 "generous" tsp. baking powder

("a bit of salt") 1 tsp.

"a few" spoons of sugar (3-4)

Cut 3 tbsp. of softened buttered into the dry mix.

Add 3 tsp. caraway seeds

1 egg

1 C buttermilk

1/2 box of raisins ("In good times, I always add more!")

Roll out onto a lightly floured bread board and knead for just a few minutes. Shape and cut with the "sign of the cross" using a sharp knife. ("Always remember to say a small prayer.")

Bake for 45 mins. Serve with a generous amount of butter, and a good hot cup of tea!

I make two loaves at a time and bake them on a greased cookie sheet.

(Be sure to read the story below for a bit more of the backstory on this recipe.)

My thanks to Mrs. Vokes for all the wonderful loaves that were dropped off on our doorway. We never caught you! You were a true Irish rascal!

The Sweet Taste of Soda Bread

On any given March 17th one thing in the Murphy household was certain.

Kathleen Vokes would come and go, leaving a warm loaf of Irish soda bread on the front step for sure. My brother and two sisters and I would fight for the chance to be the one to find it there, but in truth...she was a sneaky one, so you just never knew when she'd come.

There were other times too, when Mrs. Vokes would turn up with her soda bread, quite often in fact, for she was the quiet white-haired matriarch in the neighborhood, and she had a very watchful eye and a kind spirit to match. We were a bit of an oddity in our neighborhood, having lost both parents by the time I turned eleven. My brother, ten years older than I, was the breadwinner, as was my sister Carol.  Mrs. Vokes had always played a quiet role in our family, tending to my mom when she was sick...for she herself was a nurse. She'd come up with one of the two daily pain injections, and sometimes Carol would run down to her before the time was up, because Mom was desperate and unable to wait.

But I was oblivious to most of that. Mom died when I was just a bitty girl, and then Dad later.

Mrs. Vokes, to me, was a mystical character. She had wild white hair and pinky toes that stuck out at the ends of her cloth sneakers. She always wore an apron or held a trowel in her hand. She, like my dad, tended that small plot of land as if it were a farm in Ireland. I'd skip down the hill and knock on her door and often find her in either place, the garden or the kitchen, and then I'd be enlisted to roll out the pie dough or dig up some lost bulbs, hidden deep in the soil.

But my favorite, by far, was the making of the Irish soda bread. 

I hadn't seen Mrs. Vokes in many years, having left to go off to college, to begin my first teaching job and to buy a home of my own and have my first baby. But, to my delight, on a trip to my brother's, I discovered her there once more. Matt was just six months old, and so I propped him up on the kitchen table. She was pulling an apple pie out of the oven and so the kettle went on and we talked. I asked her if she'd give me her Irish soda bread recipe, which of course she did. There was no recipe, really...it was a 'bit of this and a bit of that', but I've managed to figure out the this and thats and have made more than a few over the years. 

When I got in my car to leave that day, we were both teary. It'd been so long, and in that short visit, I realized just how much she meant to me as that bitty girl so long ago. As fate would have it, though, my car wouldn't start. We went back in amidst the fitful cries of my little guy, Matthew. He was starving. So, as only she would, she slipped him onto that generous hip of hers and got him smiling and laughing again. But then it all stopped and the crying started again. It was then that I realized the secret incredient of all my visits to Mrs. Vokes. She switched him then from her hip to a seat atop the table, dug into that sugar bowl of hers and shoveled a heaping teaspoonful of the white stuff right into his mouth! I was horrified, but hysterical at the same time. We both laughed and laughed, and Matt's crying of course stopped. Good old Tommy Sullivan rescued us then and we were off on our way. 

Sadly, that was the last time I saw her, but I have a lifetime of memories from that kitchen, some of which are stored in my Middle Grade novel, Forever and Always, a story of a young girl growing up with only a dad, who learns to find mom in the small places, in the stories of people and the events that shape her life, those nooks and crannies of the universe. 

Tomorrow's entry: Mrs. Vokes's Irish Soda Bread Recipe. Stay tuned!